Best laptop for DJs 2019: The best laptops for music production

If you’re a DJ, or even an aspiring music producer, you’re going to need more than just the best headphones, you’re going to need one of the best laptops for music production.

If you’re looking for the best laptop for music production, you want to find a device that has one of the best processors and plenty of RAM – this is important because these will help you laptop handle multiple music tracks efficiently. You also want one of the best hard drives and SSDs, as you'll be working with large file sizes. Finally, you’ll want awesome sound, obviously, whether it’s through outside speakers, or the ones built in.

And, because traveling between gigs can wear down on your equipment, you’ll also want a laptop that can take a beating. While, you probably won’t have to go for something extreme, like the best rugged laptops, you’ll want to find a laptop that can handle bumps and kocks. And, because you’re going to be carrying it around, you’ll want something that’s thin and light, so you may want to look at the best Ultrabooks.

While the MacBook Pro may be the default for most musicians, plenty of the top laptops for music production will run Windows 10 instead.

To make choosing a laptop easy, we’ve included our exclusive price comparison tool, so you know where to find the best deal. If you want to see a more comprehensive list of prices and retailers, just click the ‘view all prices’ link on each widget.

The best laptops for music production and DJs:

The new Apple MacBook is the slimmest, slickest and best-looking Macbook the Cupertino company has ever created, and it’s one of the best selling laptops on the market. This, along with the excellent music production software available for Macs means it’s the best laptop for music production. It’s an extremely slim and light notebook that you can take anywhere without even noticing the weight, and gives you the same slick macOS performance.

The MacBook Pro is kind of known for being the go-to laptop for musicians all around the world, and the 2018 version is no different. As long as you can justify the expense, the MacBook Pro is one of the best laptops for musicians. With its Core i9 processor and up to 32GB of RAM, you’re going to be able to load up as many tracks as you need in Logic Pro X without having to worry about your laptop slowing down. It’s also incredibly sturdy – you don’t need to worry about things bumping into it in your bag, thanks to its robust aluminum unibody design.

If you’re looking for the best laptop for music production that will double as a tablet for some downtime between extraneous recording and production sessions, you might want to look at the Surface Pro 6. Not only does it pack the powerful hardware you’ll need for efficiently handling multiple music tracks, but it has a gorgeous display, and plenty of legacy connections for connecting your equipment. It lacks USB-C and Thunderbolt 3, but if you’re just in it for music production, that doesn’t really matter much, does it?

The Dell XPS 13 has been one of the best laptops you can buy for a few years running now, and the 2018 version is no different. For aspiring music producers, the XPS’ move to an 8th-generation Intel Kaby Lake R CPU should be appealing, as it will trim down the time it takes to process tracks, allowing you to minimize downtime. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to find a 1TB storage drive anymore, but when you get a laptop that looks this good and runs this fast – it’s a worthy tradeoff.

With all the 2-in-1 laptops that convert into a tablet, packed with unnecessary features, sometimes a straight Windows 10 laptop is just what you need. Luckily, Microsoft has released the Surface Laptop 2, one of the best laptops in its arsenal. Not only does this thing feature a quad-core processor and plenty of RAM, but it has a lovely touch display and all the ports you need – even if it’s lacking Thunderbolt 3. As long as you don’t need Logic Pro X, you really can’t go wrong with the Surface Laptop 2 – it’s one of the best laptops for music production.

We’ve been left wanting for a new MacBook Air for a few years now, and we finally got a new one. The new MacBook Air brings Apple’s thin and light mainstream laptop into the modern day with a sleek aluminum build, a Retina display and an actual modern processor. This all makes for one of the best laptops for musicians that want to stay with macOS – though you’ll want to invest in a couple of dongles, the two Thunderbolt 3 ports aren’t compatible with a lot of music equipment.

If you're looking for a larger and more powerful laptop for running music production software on, then the Dell XPS 15 could be for you. Packing the same InfinityEdge technology as the smaller XPS 13, the screen extends right to the edge of the machine which means it's as small as it's possible to make a 15-inch laptop in 2017. It's quite pricey though, depending on which version you get. The very top end version has a 4K color-accurate display, which can give you an excellent overview of all the tracks you're working on.